Walk, learning to
A crucial process in a child’s upbringing
September 4th 2013
A child seems so weak, so fragile, so of course we want to protect it from anything that can threaten it or harm it. But we should also prepare it for the difficulties that necessarily await it and therefore allow it to have experiences it can learn from.
When a child begins to learn to walk, it is of course in danger of falling over. But if you prevent this from happening by always holding its hand, or if you rush to pick it up when it does fall over and comfort it by taking it in your arms or giving it sweets when it cries, it will be a long time before the child understands it has to be careful, and it will expect you to come to its aid and feel sorry for it at the slightest incident. A child fell over one day and showed its mother the graze on its knee. ‘And you didn’t cry’, said the mother. ‘No’, replied the child, ‘there was no one to see me.’ Children are indeed weak, but they are also very perceptive; they instinctively sense adults’ weaknesses and take advantage of them. Obviously, you have to watch that nothing serious happens to the child. But the parents should use the time when it is learning to walk to prepare it to face life’s difficulties on its own and with courage. And this is an initiation for the parents too.